The Rings of Poseidon by Mike Crowson Read Free Book Online Page A

stood at
least five foot four or five. There was another guard nearly as
tall, standing further away on the hill and one taking charge of
things. This third one had put his helmet down, along with his
shield and spear, in the long, wiry grass. He was directing the men
doing the building. They were just piling the stones on top of each
other and sticking them together with muddy looking stuff. It was a
lot quicker than sorting out exactly which stone to lay and sloping
the walls inwards but they had to keep stopping to mix some more of
the mud. Moreover, I wasn't sure how safe it was. I mean, what if
rain washed it out or a storm blew it out? I wouldn't want to be in
the building then!
    The one in charge kept pausing to look
around. I had the impression that he was concerned about something
quite different from the construction, but what it was I couldn't
for the life of me guess.
    I had no wish to tangle with the big people,
but it seemed there was no help for it. I knew of at least two
villages on the mainland where they had killed all the people - and
now they were spreading onto the islands. There seemed no end to
their greed for land. Maybe elsewhere there was room for us to keep
out of their way, but not on the islands. I signalled to the others
to come forward with their bows. There were just the nine of them I
could see and there were seven of us - eight of us including me. I
fitted an arrow to my bow, drew it back carefully and waited.
    I gave the sign. Arrows flicked silently
across the grassy hollow. The one in charge dropped suddenly:
before an arrow hit him I'm sure. I fired three arrows in all, but
the others in my group only had to let loose two before all the
remaining big people were dead. When all was still, we crept out
and gathered up our arrows. Of the leader there was no sign. If
he'd been hit I couldn't see him. There was no time to wait around
looking: we just left quickly, covering our tracks.
    Back at the village the others were grimly
jubilant but I wasn't. I thought they'd be after us. In their place
I would be now. Not that I'd choose to do different, mind, I just
don't have the same optimism that the others seem to have.
    One of the old women came out. "Your father's
dead!" she said. "You'll have to make the great marriage, as he
did."
    I reflected. I didn't have much choice. My
father had been ill for some time and he was a good age too -
perhaps even forty. Now the people would look to me. The great
marriage was a wedding to the land, represented by one of the
priest-girls and would make me king and war chief as well as
bridegroom. I didn't have much illusion about how the war would end
but I'd no choice about that either.
    "First the funeral duties to my father and
then the great marriage", I said at length.
     
    I lay with my hands clasped behind my head
and stared at the roof without seeing it in the dim light. The fire
had burned low and was little more than a collection of red embers
and a single, flickering log in the centre of the room. I could see
that the patch of sky visible through the smoke-hole in the centre
of the roof was already beginning to turn from the black of night
to the first early grey of dawn. The bed beneath me was of young
heather with a wool blanket thrown over. The blanket was thick
enough and the heather young enough that I couldn't feel it
sticking through and there was just enough heat left in the embers
for me to be comfortably warm as I lay without covers, though I was
fully dressed. My few personal possessions were in the shadows of
this room with me but I was thinking about the future and my
destiny and the destiny of my people.
    I heard the footsteps of two older people in
the passageway outside the house and the sound of the skin at the
doorway being drawn aside to admit someone, but I did not move
until an old woman leaned over me and said, simply, "It is
time."
    I got up and followed her outside, the second
old woman following us.
    The sun was just rising